Twisted Miracles (6 page)

“Mina. It’s Mina,” I gasped. “I hear her.”

“When? Where?” His eyes grew dark and then his mind slammed into mine, ignoring my faint, instinctive shielding and reaching for my connection to his sister. He sucked in a breath as he found it, then he broke the link. The suddenness of his contact and retreat left me breathless, and I tried not to stagger. “Get dressed,” he said. “I’ll wake Lionel.”

I didn’t argue. I ran back to my room and pulled on warm clothes, hunting through my duffel and thanking God that I’d brought boots. I got a knit hat for good measure and grabbed two warm jackets and a blanket from the cabinet in the hall. I met Shane running down the stairs.

“Lionel and Bruce are staying here, in case she manages to make her way back. Have you made contact yet?”

“No—she’s not responding. But it’s definitely her.” There were no words in the connection, only tinges of cold, fear, confusion. Still, I knew that it was Mina.

Shane nodded, his lips thin as we ran through the kitchen. Hope was surging through him. It was painful to feel how he forced it back down. “I’ll drive,” he said, businesslike. “You’ve got more range than I do—you tell me where to go.”

He already had the keys to the Camaro sailing toward the door. As we flew through the mudroom, he was mentally starting the car and opening the garage. We got in, and Shane peeled out of the driveway onto the dark street. A crowd of drunk tourists holding hurricane glasses and draped in Mardi Gras beads staggered out of our way, cursing and laughing.

“Are you listening for cops?” I asked, and Shane nodded.

I turned my attention to the faint touch of Mina’s mind, growing stronger by the minute. I had to concentrate to pick up the direction it was coming from. We drove northwest out of the Quarter and the crowds, and I told Shane to keep going.

“Stay on the surface streets,” I said. “It’ll be easier.”

“Yes,” he agreed, turning up Canal Boulevard toward the lake.

The constant listening was draining, and I wished we’d thought to bring food. I needed the energy, and when we found Mina, she might be close to starving. Before I could voice the thought, Shane levitated an energy bar from a bag in the back seat.

“There’s a box of beef jerky and MREs in the trunk, and a case of bottled water.”

“Thank God.” I grabbed the bar, tore open the wrapper and shoveled the food down. My blood sugar spiked almost instantly.

Ten minutes later we came to the causeway, the long bridge disappearing into the darkness over the lake, and it was clear we were going into the water. We looked at each other, and Shane made a hard right, heading for the marina at West End. I didn’t have to ask what he intended. As we fishtailed into the walled parking lot, he already had his door open. I killed the engine while he vaulted over the security gate blocking the nearest dock and sprinted for a cabin cruiser in the last slip. It looked fast.

By the time I caught up with him, Shane already had the housing off the steering column.

“Keep a lookout,” he said, and I watched the quiet dock as he stripped and married the ignition lines and the starter wire. A moment later, the engine choked to life.

“Let’s hope they don’t decide to go for an early-morning fishing trip,” I said. Shane huffed out a humorless laugh and backed out of the slip. We didn’t get five feet before we jerked to a stop, caught by the dock line. I snapped it with a focused surge of mental force before I’d had time to think about it, and the cruiser jolted back, narrowly missing a sailboat moored in the opposite slip. Shane gave me a quick, unreadable look and shoved up the throttle, taking us to open water.

The cabin cruiser was faster than Mina’s bateau would have been, and we made great time over the lake. I held on to my seat and focused on Mina. Her presence got stronger as we sped under the twelve-mile hump in the causeway, only a handful of taillights making their way over the long bridge. I shivered against the cold and huddled into my jacket.

“Can you still feel her?” Shane had to yell over the noise of the motor.

“Yes!” I shouted back. “Keep going!”

We were leaving New Orleans behind, the cypress trees on the north shore coming into view as I guided Shane across the lake. After several minutes, I signaled to Shane to head up a narrow pass bearing north. It got harder then. We didn’t have the freedom of being on open water, and we had to navigate toward Mina through the web of rivers and creeks. I thought about tying the boat off and walking over the low, marshy land, but that would have been slower than sticking to the waterways. By now I was truly exhausted, but Mina’s presence was still there, growing slowly stronger as we turned down weed-clotted sloughs, backtracked, took new paths. We were getting there.

We passed under a long-abandoned railway bridge, crumbling and choked with kudzu, and I held up my hand. She was close. Shane used his mind to tie us off to a tupelo sapling hanging over the water, and we leaped from the boat to the bank. This time, I didn’t need help.

The ground was spongy with layers of dead leaves and river silt, and we had to pick our way through spiky palmetto plants and clusters of cypress knees. Spanish moss dangled from the low limbs of water oaks, and I lifted it away as I went. Through it all I felt Mina, growing closer and clearer in the dark.

“She must be nearby,” I said, confused. Her presence was blaring in my brain like a radio station tuned slightly off—stuttering, wordless, impossible to ignore. “We need light.”

White light flared beside me. Shane had conjured up a crackling ball of light in the hollow of his hands. He raised it up to hang just above eye level, and it expanded to the size of a basketball, casting weird shadows on the trees around us. I scanned the ground for a patch of clothing, a footprint, anything to guide us. Then I saw the moss-covered ruins of a shack just ahead.

“Shane.”

He followed my gaze, and we both ran forward. The shack was just like one of dozens scattered throughout the swamps, built as a hunting camp decades ago and abandoned to rot. It was little more than a box on low stilts, the floor only inches above the muddy ground.

The door had long since fallen off its hinges. As we reached it, I almost dreaded what we’d find. Shane sent in his light ball, and it glowed blue-white in the small space and sent rays of light through the cracks in the walls, illuminating the trees and palmettos. The shack was empty.

Shane moved closer. “I can feel her.”

“Me too.” I was about to walk up the crumbling steps and go inside when Shane grabbed my arm and pulled me back. He pointed to the crawlspace beneath the shack.

I fell to my stomach on the muddy ground. Shane went down beside me and sent the ball of light zooming toward the dark gap between the wood and the earth. I dragged myself closer, soaking my jeans and shirt, and saw the dirt-streaked, abraded length of Mina’s arm.

“Mina!” Shane scrambled forward. He was an instant away from digging up the ground beneath her when I stopped him.

“Careful. We have to be careful.” If we shifted too much of the earth below her, we risked destabilizing the structure and crushing her underneath it.

He clenched his fists. “I’ll lift it. Can you get her out?”

I didn’t trust my control. Not for something like this. Shane was strong, but he wouldn’t be able to hold the building up for long, and if I lost my mental grip on Mina, we risked hurting her even more. My heart thudded. I was going to have to get as close to her as possible. I nodded once to Shane and crawled to the edge of the shack.

I reached into the crawlspace. It was slick with mud, and many-legged creatures crawled over my skin as I disturbed them. I bit my lower lip and kept myself from shuddering with willpower alone.

“Mina?” There was no response. I kept talking anyway. “We’re going to get you out, okay? We’re here. We’re going to get you out.” I let my power reach out with my fingers and wrap around her body. She didn’t move.

Shane crouched in front of the shack and laid his palms on the wasted wood. It was so decayed, I feared any attempt to move it would bring the whole thing crashing down. He went slowly, deliberately, and I felt how much it cost him. He reached out with his power and contacted the whole floor of the structure, every rotten board and rusted nail. He was sweating from the effort.

“On three,” he said. I pressed my cheek into the mud and got my head under the shack. I managed to get my fingers around Mina’s arm. Cool to the touch. I shoved down the fear.

“One,” Shane said. I tightened my grip. “Two.” I held my breath. “Three.”

The shack tilted two feet into the air. Wood groaned as the back stilts splintered under the weight. Mina’s small body was curled in a muddy depression in the center. I reached out with my power and my arms and dragged her back with me to safety. An instant later the whole shack collapsed into a mound of broken planks and insect-ridden rot.

She was warm. She was warm. Her limbs were cold but the core of her body was warm.

“Mina? Mina, can you hear me?” Shane pulled his sister into his arms and cradled her, wiping black mud from her face. “Can you reach her?” He looked at me. There was so much pain in his voice it made me choke.

I shook my head, unable to speak. I could still feel the touch of her mind, but it was faint. Her skin was dull and streaked with dirt, marred by angry red scrapes, splinters and insect bites; her hair was matted with mud and detritus. Black sludge was caught in her ears. I tried not to think about that slime working its way into her mouth, her lungs.

Shane closed his eyes and touched his forehead to hers. I didn’t dare tap into the mental connection he was trying to make. He didn’t speak for several long moments.

“We need to get her to a hospital,” I said finally.

“Just another minute.” He didn’t open his eyes. He was still holding Mina close to his chest. His shirt was streaked with blood and dirt.

“Shane,” I said. No response. “
Shane!
” I broke through his focus, startled by the raw fear in his head. “
We need to get her to a doctor.
”

He finally looked at me. “Not a doctor. We need Bunny.”

Chapter Five

The ride back to New Orleans passed in an anxious haze. Shane sat below deck with Mina, still trying to reach her, while I navigated back to the marina, praying we wouldn’t run into the Coast Guard. Fortunately, the dock was still deserted when we returned the cabin cruiser. I patched up Shane’s hot-wiring job with electrical tape while he got Mina into the car. No one was around to see me launch myself over the padlocked gate.

“I spoke to Lionel,” Shane said when I got into the passenger seat. “He’ll meet us at Bunny’s.”

I nodded. I’d been to Bunny’s once before. Her place was a high-end spa during the day, but at night she did other kinds of treatments. The one time I’d come had been right after Shane had shattered his wrist trying to levitate himself down from the third-floor balcony. I’d never seen Lionel so angry. If we’d gone to the emergency room, there would have been pins and surgery, and Shane might never have gotten full use of his arm back. But Bunny wasn’t a doctor. She was a different kind of shadowmind, one of the rarest types, a healer. If anyone could bring Mina back, it was her.

When we got to her Magazine Street spa, Bunny was waiting for us at the back door. Lionel must’ve woken her from a dead sleep, but she still looked like she’d spent hours in front of the mirror. Her steel-gray hair was perfectly straight in its chin-length bob, and she was wearing dress slacks with creases that could’ve cut butter. She held the door open for Shane, who carried Mina in his arms, and I followed them inside. Bunny’s heels echoed in the dark hall as she led us back.

“I have a room set up,” she said, her voice crisp and even. “Through here.” She pushed open a door, flooding the hall with soft light. I peeked inside. The room was packed with candles.

Shane walked past Bunny and laid Mina down on what looked like a massage table. He straightened her arms and legs, streaking the white sheet beneath her with mud, and Bunny stood at her head and put her hands on her shoulders. I watched from the doorway, unnerved by the scent of the candles. They smelled sharp and not quite pleasant, like vinegar.

“How long has she been like this?” Bunny took a damp washcloth from a stack and used it to clear the dirt from her face.

“We found her shoved in a crawlspace,” Shane said, and Bunny’s eyes flashed with pity for a split second. “It’s been almost two days since we mindspoke.”

“And you’ve tried to reach her, I assume?”

Shane nodded. “Still trying.”

“Well, stop while I see what I can see.” Bunny closed her eyes. She was a slender, petite woman, and probably in her seventies at least, but she was terrifying when she focused. I wasn’t brave enough to dip into her head, but I could tell she was forging some sort of connection to Mina, exploring what was broken.

“Nothing serious, physically,” she said finally, eyes still closed. “Shock and exposure, but that’s simple enough to fix.” Even as she said it, Mina’s gray skin warmed and the red bites and wounds along her arms faded to scar-brown and disappeared. “That’s not what’s keeping her under.” Mina’s fingers twitched, but she didn’t wake.

“Why isn’t she waking up?” Shane asked. “What is it?”

“Patience, darling.”

Mina’s whole body stiffened and jerked inches off the table.

“Mina!” Shane bent his face close to hers. He was broadcasting mental messages, asking if she could hear him, sending her the stable assurance of his presence. I couldn’t have blocked it out if I’d tried.

Bunny laid a manicured hand on his shoulder. “Not yet, darling. She needs calm.”

He ignored her, eyes closed, hands gripping Mina’s arms. Bunny pulled at his shoulder, but Shane didn’t budge.

“Let me try,” he said. “I can get through to her, just let me—”

He fell to the floor in a heap.

“I’m sorry,” Bunny said, before I could draw in a breath to gasp. “I can’t have him interfering with the process. Take him home.” She turned back to Mina as though she hadn’t just knocked out a full-grown man without lifting a finger.